I am
both an archaeologist and a historian focusing on Bronze Age China. As an
archaeologist, my early field work dates back to 1983-1990 when I was a
research fellow in the Institute of Archaeology, Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences (Beijing), excavating the capital sites Feng
and Hao of the Western Zhou dynasty (1045–771 B.C.)
in Shaanxi province. In recent years, as the PI of Columbia’s archaeological
project in Shandong (2006-present), my research focus has been shifted from
such central sites to the periphery of the Shang-Zhou world. I am interested in
issues such as the rise and dynamics of early states, transition to
imperialism, early society political economy, writing and the development of
literacy, and regional variations of Bronze-age cultures and their communications,
particularly the way that different complex-society cultures responded to each
other.

As a
historian, I have spent much of my last fifteen years on analyzing inscriptions
on bronze vessels from the Zhou period (1045-256 BC) and on exploring their
implications for early states and society in China. In particular, my research
in bronze inscriptions in the past developed along two lines. The first examined
evidence for the political structure of the Western Zhou state and the origin of
bureaucratic government in China, while the second considered calligraphical and technical features of inscribed bronzes
as a way to authenticate them and to understand the social system in which they
were created. In recent years, I spent more time
on Eastern Zhou (770-256 BC) bronzes and their inscriptions for the purpose of
graduate teaching in Columbia University.

Believing that our true knowledge
of the past can be better achieved on the basis of impartial understanding of
all surviving evidence, archaeological, inscriptional, and textual, I look for
ways to integrate the material form of evidence and the written records in the
study of early states and societies. I have been directing the Guicheng archaeological survey and excavation in Shandong,
China, since 2006 (see below). I am also co-chairing the Columbia Early China
Seminar, an inter-university forum for the study of China from the Neolithic to
A.D. 220. All interested Columbia instructors and graduate students are welcome
to attend the meetings. The current and past programs can be found at: http://www.columbia.edu/cu/seminars/EarlyChina/ecs.html

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Books

2013New Release – September

Early China: A Social and
Cultural History. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.

Early China offers critical new interpretation about the period
from the beginning of human history in China to the end of the Han Dynasty in
AD 220. The volume draws on the most recent scholarship and archaeological
discoveries from the past thirty years, highlighting key issues in early
Chinese civilization such as the origins of the written language, the rise of
the state, Shang and Zhou religions, bureaucracy, law and governance, the
evolving nature of war, the creation of empire, the changing image of art, and
the philosophical search for social order. Beautifully illustrated with a wide
range of new images, this book is essential reading for all those wanting to
know more about the foundations of Chinese history and civilization

Paperback and hardback are both
available at first publication and can be ordered from Cambridge’s website:

Writing and Literacy in Early China: Studies from the Columbia
Early China Seminar, edited by Li Feng
and David PragerBranner.
Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011.

Writing and Literacy in Early
China examines a topic of international importance: the emergence and spread of
literacy in ancient human society. Writing arose separately in Mesopotamia,
Egypt, Mesoamerica, and China. Modern Chinese orthography preserves logographic
principles shared by its most ancient forms three thousand years ago, making it
unique among all present-day writing systems. In the past three decades, the
discovery of previously unknown texts dating to the third century BCE and
earlier as well as older versions of known texts has revolutionized the study
of early Chinese writing.

This new volume brings together studies by
eleven sinologists from multiple disciplines to clarify the origin and social
dimensions of literacy in Early China. Taking writing as a phenomenon of
literacy, the studies examine a series of issues: possible stages in the
invention of the Chinese writing, ways by which literacy was acquired, evidence
of the multiple social spheres they represent, extent of literacy across
regions, classes, genders, and professional social groups, etc. This is the
very first book on early literacy in China.

____________________________________________

2010

《西周的政體：中國古代的官僚制度和國家》

北京：生活·读书·新知三联书店，2010

____________________________________________

2008

Bureaucracy and the State
in Early China: Governing the Western Zhou.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, December 2008. Paperback
2013.

The book explores and interprets the
origins and operational characteristics of one of the World’s earliest
bureaucracies on the basis of the contemporaneous inscriptions of royal edicts
cast onto bronze vessels, many of which have been discovered quite recently in
archaeological explorations. The inscriptions clarify the political and social
systems of the Western Zhou state and the ways in which it exercised authority.
The book also discusses the theory of bureaucracy and criticizes the various
models of early-archaic states on the basis of close reading of the
inscriptions. It redefines the Western Zhou as a kin-ordered and
settlement-based state.

_____________________________________________

2007

《西周的滅亡：中國早期國家的地理和政治危機》

上海：上海古籍出版社，2007.

_____________________________________________

2006

Landscape and Power in Early China: The Crisis and Fall of the Western Zhou (1045-771 B.C.). Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, March 2006.

This
book addresses the complex relationship between geography and political power
in the special context of the crisis and fall of the Western Zhou. Drawing on
the latest archaeological discoveries, the book shows how inscribed bronze
vessels can be used to reveal changes in political space, and how the three
disciplines, archaeology, history, and geography can work together to achieve a
coherent understanding of the Bronze Age past. Embracing an interdisciplinary
approach and enhanced by the full coverage of sources, the book thoroughly
reinterprets late Western Zhou history and questions deeply into the causes of
its gradual decline and eventual fall.

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Archaeological Fieldwork

The Guicheng Project:

The Guicheng Project was established in 2006 as a
field-collaboration between Columbia University, the Institute of Archaeology
of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, and the Shandong Provincial
Institute of Archaeology. Guicheng was a prominent
late Bronze-Age city (10th to 5th centuries BC.), measuring 7.5 km2 and located
in the eastern part of the Shandong Peninsula of China. During the four
field-seasons conducted in 2007-2009, we have systematically surveyed and
mapped the entire city-complex and have cored and test-excavated its central
citadel. The fieldwork has yielded important information for understanding the
social political transition in this multicultural environment, particularly the
indigenous culture’s responses to the advanced bronze culture in central China.
An official monographic report on the fieldwork is currently under preparation.

Forthcoming: “A Study of the Bronze Vessels and Sacrificial
Remains of the Early Qin State from Lixian, Gansu.”
In Edward L. Shaughnessy ed., The Places of Kinship.
Chicago.

“Sojusidaetoksanungryokkwasosauisahoejokmaekrak.” In
Jae-hoon Shim ed., HwaipudonguiTongasiahak: MinjoksawakodaeChunggukyon'gucharyosongch'al (East Asian
Studies Harmonized and yet Different: Reflections on the National History and
the Sources of Studying Early China), pp. 167-204. Seoul: P'urunyoksa, 2012.

“The Study of Western Zhou History: A Response and a
Methodological Explication.” Early China
33-34 (2010-2011): 287-306.

“Literacy
and the Social Contexts of Writing in the Western Zhou” (in English). In Li Feng and David PragerBranner ed., Writing
and Literacy in Early China: Studies from the Columbia Early China Seminar,
pp. 271-302. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011.

“A Study of the Bronze Vessels and Sacrificial
Remains of the Early Qin State from Lixian, Gansu”
(in Chinese), Wenwu
2011.5, 55-67.

“The Study of Early China
and Its Archaeological Foundations: Perspectives in a New Age of Global
Integration” (translated into Chinese by Hu Baohua),
In Zhang Haihui ed., Chinese Studies in North America — Research and Resources, pp.
51-69. Beijing: Zhonghuashuju,
2010.

“A Cultural Ecology of the Northwestern Frontier of the Western
Zhou State” (in Chinese). In Choyun Hsu and Zhang Zhongpei ed., Archaeology
in the New Century: Multi-Agent Interaction between Culture, Region, and
Ecology, pp. 171-204. Beijing: Forbidden City Press, 2006.

“Rethinking European ‘Feudalism’ and Its Implications to the
Periodization of Chinese History” (in Chinese), Zhongguoxueshu (China Scholarship) 24 (2006), 8-29.

“The City of Zheng, the Eastward
Migration of the State of Zheng, and Related
Historical Issues” (in Chinese).Wenwu
(Cultural Relics) 2006.9, 70-78.
“Succession and Promotion: Elite Mobility during the Western Zhou.” MonumentaSerica
(Germany) 52 (2004), 1-35.

“Textual Criticism and
Western Zhou Bronze Inscriptions: The Example of the Mu Gui” (in English). In Essay in Honour of AnZhimin.
Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, 2004. Pp. 280-97.

“Solving the Historical-Geographical Problems of the Inscription
of the DuoyouDing” (in Japanese).In Chûgokukodai no moji to bunka (Writing and Culture in Ancient China).
Tokyo: Kyûkoshoin, 1999.
Pp. 179-206.